


Too Darn Hot

by matrixrefugee



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-20 08:40:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17619113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixrefugee/pseuds/matrixrefugee
Summary: A hot summer day affects even the Hub...





	Too Darn Hot

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](https://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/profile)[fic_promptly](https://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/)'s [ Torchwood, author's choice, a sweltering Hub.](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/149158.html?thread=6809510#cmt6809510) Wrote this on the coldest night (so far) in November.

The fans that Tosh and Owen had rigged up only succeeded in moving the hot, moist air that hung in the Hub. No cooling taking place.

"So what's causing the heat?" Gwen asked, mopping the back of her neck with an already sodden handkerchief, as several of them sat near the tidal basin at the base of the Rift manipulator's silvery tower.

"Global warming run amok?" Owen replied, shirtless, which did nothing to improve the situation, except cause some smirking from anyone who looked his way.

"That's what happens when people run those gas guzzler cars," Jack said, loping through, shirtless as well and clad in a pair of cut off shorts that left little to the imagination. "Causes micro-climates to form, affects the weather. Al Gore's doing a dance about now, thanks to the people with a need to compensate."

"Guess we need to ditch the car, start riding bicycles to track down aliens," Owen groused.

"We're lucky: we got a compact sub-nuclear reactor in the car," Jack said, as Ianto, actually in his shirt sleeves, joined the rest of the team, carrying a pitcher of iced coffee and a tray of glasses.

"Still have to restock the fuel rods, but not as often as most people have to refuel their cars," Ianto noted, filling the glasses and handing them around.

Owen raised an eyebrow. "Care to share the tech with the rest of the world?" he asked.

"On a day like this, it's not a bad idea," Jack said, accepting one of the glasses. "Problem is, you say 'sub-nuclear', people get bent out of shape, start worrying about radiation and harmful waste."

"Like using hydrocarbons haven't harmed the environment," Tosh muttered, taking a sip from her glass.

"So is that why we don't share more of the tech that we find?" Gwen asked.

"One of the reasons: people can claim they're open to new ideas and new devices, but if it's too strange, too far out of their frame of experience, they get panicky and resistant to change," Jack said, taking another sip from his glass. "Think of the people who rag about the evils of television or the Internet. Used to rag about penicillin, believe it or not: when the medical doctors found out it cured some forms of syphilis, the religious rigorists said it'd cause rampant sexual deviancy. Never mind the 'deviants' -- by their quaint little definition -- already were hiding under their noses and inside of their own clothes sometimes.

He looked to Tosh. "Any luck with the temperature scrubber?"

She glanced to the notes on the dry erase board by her side -- too hot to use the computers without them crashing every five seconds. "Nothing that wouldn't require opening the Rift for a moment, to vent the hot air," she said.

"And let through who knows what," Jack replied.

"Maybe a way to bottle this up and save it till we need this heat in January?" Owen suggested.

Tosh looked up, her eyes sparkling with inspiration. "Bottle it up," she said, "Jack, we still have those quantum containers that fell through a few months ago."

"The ones I said could hold everything from the hordes of Genghis Khan to a mini-planet's atmosphere?" Jack replied.

"I think I've got it, though the hard part will be figuring out how to get the heat into the boxes," Tosh said, getting up, Ianto following her, clearly going to dig up the quantum containers.

"Inspiration's burning," Jack noted, grinning as he looked after the two of them.

"About as hot as the air down here," Owen grumbled. "This better work, 'cause my patience has about boiled off."

"If it's electrical, Tosh can do it," Gwen said, confident in their tech's capabilities.

"Even if she has to do it with chewing gum and bell wires and paper fans," Jack added.


End file.
